Activity relating to the work of French thinker Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Category: Petitions

This video accompanies the petition for a Michel Foucault chair in Brazil. It is a performance in French and Portuguese of an imagined response by Foucault addressed to the Cardinal and Bishops who voted not to authorise the establishment of the Chair.

Yes to the institution of the “Michel Foucault and the Philosophy of the Present Chair” at PUC São Paulo

Both São Paulo’s Cardinal, Odilo Scherer, and the Bishops of his archdiocese, recently announced that they do not authorize the creation of what had already been announced 4 years ago: the institution of the “Michel Foucault and the Philosophy of the Present Chair” at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP). This decision not only profoundly surprised all those who, coming from many countries, had from the very beginning embraced this initiative, but also all those who, within PUC-SP itself, had worked vigorously to guarantee the institution of this Chair bearing Michel Foucault’s name.

During the 7th International Michel Foucault Conference, held in October 2011, and which brought together dozens of specialists and interested researchers in Foucault’s oeuvre, a letter was signed supporting the initiative. The list of signees included members of the Collège International de Philosophie (Paris), of the University of Paris VIII, the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, the New University of Lisbon, Madrid’s University Complutense, Paris’ École Normal Supérieure, the Universidad San Martin in Argentina, the Universidad de los Andes in Venezuela and the University of Valparaiso in Chile. The initiative also received support from the General Consulate of France in São Paulo. In 2011, PUC-SP received a copy of the audio archives of Foucault’s classes donated by the Collège de France, in what made PUC-SP the only institution outside France allowed to grant them public access. Having in view the institution of the Michel Foucault and the Philosophy of the Present Chair at PUC-SP, what followed were study sessions, seminars and debates on specific literature as preparatory work for this eagerly anticipated event, all of which generated high expectations and a growing enthusiasm.

The decision to reject the institution of the Michel Foucault and the Philosophy of the Present Chair de-authorizes the scientific, philosophical and pedagogical committees which approved the initiative. ‘Academic freedom’, which stands as a basic fundament of university life, was breached. However, if it is well established that the interest in Foucault’s work goes way beyond religious beliefs, it is no less evident that many Catholic thinkers wrote about and inspired themselves in Foucault’s work. This latter fact – to which we could also add the many studies presently considering Foucault’s contribution to an understanding of Christianity – is ever so more highlighted when Dominicans from the Library du Saulchoir welcomed the archives during the period in which these archives faced the risk of being sent abroad, in what allowed them a safe haven in the very place Foucault worked for hours on end.

This Library, which is irrefutably heir to the Catholic tradition and not for that reason less open to Parisian intellectuals or intellectuals passing through Paris, regularly welcomes presentations and discussions covering diverse fields. It is in light of this plurality that many contemporary studies considering Foucault’s contribution to the study of the origins of Christianity and its rooting in ancient culture, in particular, in Stoic philosophy, have been conducted in the Library. What we find here is an example of historical lucidity of the sort evidenced by the work undertaken by the historian Peter Brown, and upon which students and professors focusing on the first centuries of our era have taken full advantage of and will continue to do so. It is also worth highlighting that, after The Order of Things, Foucault’s own work was strongly inspired by a principle of compassion and dedicated to the question of ‘governmentality’, a question which would transform our way of understanding human relations and their intimate connection with the law.

All these facts already define an excess of reasons justifying our perplexity when faced with the Council of Bishops’ decision. This Chair, which honors Michel Foucault, is not simply dedicated to the readership of his texts (which, today, are already impossible to ignore as part of classical culture): it is also turned towards to the analysis – which is not exclusive to his oeuvre – of the questions posed today by both thought itself and the demands of civil life. The refusal of such a Chair, a Chair which, carrying Michel Foucault’s name, is by nature open to actuality, radically contradicts the deontology of University life as well as its most basic fundament: the exercise of free thought. As such, it can only be the University itself which stands as the first victim of this decision: beyond professors, students and researchers, it is Brazilian public opinion which understands itself to be attacked by such a decision. And we have been witnesses of these protests.

All, however, hope that the Council of Bishops will renounce what evidently stands as a form of censorship, revoking its rejection. The Academic Board at the PUC-SP has appealed the decision. From now onwards, it is up to the international community to show that it supports the institution of the Michel Foucault and the Philosophy of the Present Chair at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. Such is what the signees of the letter supporting this initiative did in October 2011, a letter which, for the very reason of defending the institution of a Chair bearing Michel Foucault’s name, is itself already an invitation to all those committed to exercise of free thought to join them.